I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on January 07, 2009, 01:48:54 PM
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Husband in divorce case wants wife's kidney back--or $1.5M
Doc from Ronkonkoma wants donated organ -- or equal value -- back from wife as part of divorce settlement
BY CHAU LAM AND RIDGELY OCHS
chau.lam@newsday.com ridgely.ochs@newsday.com
2:33 PM EST, January 7, 2009
When his wife needed a kidney transplant, Dr. Richard Batista gave her one of his, attorney Dominic Barbara said.
Now that Dawnell Batista has filed for a divorce, Richard Batista wants his kidney back as part of his settlement demand. Or, Barbara said Wednesday, his client wants the value of that kidney: An estimated $1.5 million.
The case is being heard in Supreme Court in Mineola.
-Click here to see photos of Dr. Richard and Dawnell Batista
Barbara said his client, a 49-year-old doctor from Ronkonkoma who graduated Cornell University Medical School in 1995, married Dawnell Batista on Aug. 31, 1990. The couple had three children, now ages 14, 11 and 8.
After she had two failed transplants, Barbara said, his client donated a kidney to his wife in an operation that took place at the University of Minnesota Medical Center on June 18, 2001.
Richard Batista said his marriage at the time was on the rocks because of the strain of his wife's medical issues.
"My first priority was to save her life," Batista said at a news conference in Garden City. "The second bonus was to turn the marriage around."
Dawnell Batista, 44, of Massapequa, filed for divorce in July 2005, Barbara said.
Neither she nor her attorney, Douglas Rothkopf, of Garden City, could immediately be reached for comment. A receptionist at Rothkopf's office said he was in court.
Medical ethicists agreed that the case is a nonstarter. Asked how likely it would be for the doctor to either get his kidney back or get money for it, Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, put it as "somewhere between impossible and completely impossible."
First and foremost, said Robert Veatch, a medical ethicist at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics, "it's illegal for an organ to be exchanged for anything of value." Organs in the United States may not be bought or sold. Donating an organ is a gift and legally "when you give something, you can't get it back," he said.
"It's her kidney now and . . . taking the kidney out would mean she would have to go on dialysis or it would kill her," Veatch said.
Nor can you assign a subsequent monetary value to an organ, Caplan said. "There's nothing later [you can get] in terms of compensation if you regret your gift," he said.
What's more, no reputable surgeon would perform such a transplant and no court could compel a person to undergo an operation, he said.
Staff writer John Valenti contributed to this story.
http://www.newsday.com/iphone/ny-likidn0108,0,4282450.story?track=rss
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Asshole! It was a gift! :Kit n Stik; :Kit n Stik;
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What a jerk!
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I just read this again. She stood buy him his last FIVE years of med school, gave him 3 children, all while her health was probably going downhill.
It was in his best interests to donate a kidney - not just for her benefit - to improve the life of his family.
He sounds like a real piece of work!
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New York, Long Island to be specific. Need I say anymore!?
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I agree - what a piece of work! I can only imagine what his wife has had to put up with all these years....
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The mind boggles....
some people!!
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:Kit n Stik; :Kit n Stik; :Kit n Stik; :Kit n Stik;
What a dick!
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about those Secret Santa gifts.........
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He's the loser, now we know why his wife cheated. I don't blame her.
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Here's the husband speaking http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11444512
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Wow, what in the wold is he planing on doing with it after he gets it back? Not that he can, but its not like anyone would put it back inside of him. People are so stupid, I can't get over that.. just wow
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I'm a little confused. Isn't it illegal to sell a kidney in the US, and if he demands the kidney back or $1.5 million, isn't that tantamount to selling the kidney? Inquiring minds wanna know!
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That is what I am saying. I don't understand why he wants it back. Dose he hate his ex wife that much that he would rather give away his kidney to a stranger then the mother of his children? And if he is upset because of how hard the relationship got with her being sick, what kind of husband dose that make him? This really gets under my skin. >:(
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Based on this news, I would not want to have this surgeon perform surgery on me.
Rule of thumb: Your surgeon should not have more emotional problems than the patient does.
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did he really love her at all
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did he really love her at all
That is what I want to know. I know how hard it is. But come on, what kind of love is that? And parent, why in the world would you want your children to lose a mother, because you can't be with her anymore. I just don't get it.
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No love lost there - here wins the biggest loser award in my book!
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Here's the husband speaking http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11444512
He needs to get over himself.
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He's so angry he's lost sight of all ability to reason.
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I heard a news anchorman say: It's like Adam telling Eve, 'I want the rib back!'
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This just boggles my mind. My brain just doesn't go to places like that. It's just totally incomprehensible to me. First of all, I don't believe any court in the country would even hear such a case and shame on the lawyer who's allowing him to file it in the first place but I'd almost be tempted to give the damn thing back to him (I'd never even consider giving him a dime!). And then let anyhone and everyone know that he put the mother of his children back on dialysis. What a gem. :sarcasm;
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why isn't he asking for his sperm back ??? or was there any ??? :o
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why isn't he asking for his sperm back ??? or was there any ??? :o
:rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl; :rofl;
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why isn't he asking for his sperm back ??? or was there any ??? :o
:rofl; Good point Twirl-Girl. Only HE thinks she owes him for that pleasure too! :rofl;
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http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=11515679&ch=4226713&src=news
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The news feed seems like he is full of it when he says he was happy to donate, but bitter about the marriage. If so, then rectify it somehow in the news and quit having your lawyer blame her for not having her family donate. This still gives organ donation bad publicity that was only garned from him and his lawyers actions in the news.
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Sounds more like he needs a brain instead of a kidney!
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Cross posted from my blog (http://www.billpeckham.com)
It's true the guy did give her a kidney but everything else appears to be a total lie (http://www.billpeckham.com/from_the_sharp_end_of_the/2009/01/doctor-sure-sounds-like-a-liar.html)
By Bill Peckham
I've held off on commenting on the man wants his kidney back (http://news.google.com/news?q=man+wants+his+kidney+back&btnG) stories that have been widely discussed on not only CKD discussion boards and listservs but throughout the national media. It supposedly brings up questions of ethics and should we pay for organs. I don't think it does but I do know one thing: You should never think that you know what happened in a marriage if you've only heard the story from one of the spouses.
HDCN (http://www.hdcn.com/) links to Dawnell Batista, wife at center of kidney case breakup finally tells her dramatic story (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/01/18/2009-01-18_dawnell_batista_wife_at_center_of_kidney.html) published in the Daily News and sure enough it turns out the guy is a lying liar and a gigantic jerk. When the lying doctor "told Larry King his reason for divorce was “infidelity.” He didn’t say it was his own." In fact the wife has an incredibly sympathetic story and it is an indictment of the media that they took this liar and his Howard Stern lawyer at face value.
The one part of the story that the highly believable Daily News story missed is that the lying doctor also impacted people far removed from his self centered universe. This idea that your donor could come back years latter and want your kidney will add another factor against in the calculus of accepting a kidney from a living donor. I am waiting for Larry King to have Dawnell on, as well as her corroborating friends so that the lying doctor can be properly held up to public ridicule and scorn.
While Larry is on the topic he should also have on his show someone from Donate Life (http://www.donatelife.net/) (if it was up to me I'd call it Sustain Life, but whatever) to talk about living donation and why this one particular lying jerk shouldn't enter into anyone's personal calculus on whether to accept a kidney from a living donor.
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my one thought throughout this entire thing is even if the wife would say "ok, here have it back" medically speaking would there be anyone willing to take it out and would they put it back in the husband. i don't think so! the entire thing is just plane stupid. so stupid it doesn't deserve the attention it's getting.